Under pressure to carve out more humane deportation practices without tearing families apart, the Obama administration is reviewing its immigration policies as reform efforts sputter in Congress. But Senate Republicans are raising “grave concerns” that such changes would “represent a near complete abandonment of basic immigration enforcement” and accusing President Obama of overstepping his constitutional powers to the point of threatening the entire system.
In a letter to the president dated Thursday, a team of 22 Republican senators accused the administration of consistently weakening immigration enforcement ever since Obama assumed office in 2009. With several top Republicans signed on — including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee — the three-page letter pounds a familiar right-wing drumbeat against threats the president will flex his executive powers on immigration.
“Our entire constitutional system is threatened when the executive branch suspends the law at its whim and our nation’s sovereignty is imperiled when the commander-in-chief refuses to defend the integrity of its borders,” the GOP signers wrote.
None of the conservatives joined in the letter are a part of the Senate’s Gang of Eight — the architects of the bipartisan immigration reform deal that passed through the Senate last year. House Republicans have since tabled the issue, and it’s increasingly unlikely they will pass immigration reforms anytime soon.
Immigration activists for their part have effectively pronounced reforms as dead in Congress and are urging the president to circumvent inaction on Capitol Hill through executive action. Though the administration has not released details outlining policy changes, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is expected to unveil a plan to curb deportations of immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally and have no criminal record.
In their letter, the Republicans argue “the changes under consideration would represent a near complete abandonment of basic immigration enforcement and discard the rule of law and the notion that the United States as enforceable borders.”









